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  • Garden of Palazzo Caccini, Florence.zoom in altra finestra
  • Entrance of Palazzo Caccini, Florence.zoom in altra finestra

Palazzo Caccini Garden

One of the most renowned in late sixteenth-century Florence, the garden belonged to Matteo Caccini, famous floriculturist, collector and scholar of botany at that time. Adjoining the Palazzo Caccini, which was transferred to the Vernaccia family and then to the Lustrini family, the garden was famous for its rare plants. A drawing in the Biblioteca Riccardiana presents the garden divided into various areas with a fountain for watering the plants in the middle, and where new bulbs were cultivated and studied.

In 1607, Flemish botanist Carolus Clusius (Charles l’Ecluse), to whom Caccini sent plant seeds from his garden, admired specimens of anemones from Constantinople. The garden also had beautiful hyacinths (Hyacinthus orientalis) from Constantinople, lily of the valley from Alexandria of Egypt, even extolled by Francesco Redi (also known as "the Grand Duke’s Lilly", Jasminum sambac), and the Star Glory (Ipomaea quamoclit).

The garden’s present condition does not allow the visitor to intuit the original design, as the garden today is smaller and made up of a lawn with box hedges and a few statues.

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Texts by Alessandro Tosi

English translation by Victor Beard

Last update 19/gen/2008